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Fundamentals will be a Biennale about architecture, not architects. After several Biennales dedicated to the celebration of the contemporary, Fundamentals will focus on histories – on the inevitable elements of all architecture used by any architect, anywhere, anytime (the door, the floor, the ceiling etc.) and on the evolution of national architectures in the last 100 years.
— labiennale.org

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"ideally, we would want the represented countries to engage a single theme – Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014 – and to show, each in their own way, the process of the erasure of national characteristics in favour of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language in a single repertoire of typologies."

open up any magazine of trendy architecture and you'll see instance of the above abound. is the Biennale an invitation to be, in content, indiscriminate in cultural episteme and by consequence in practice and, in style, smug?

much more interesting is the cultural differences that occur within each country let alone the differences between one country and the other. we know convergence; we're getting bored by it. much more relevant to people is their quirks, their eccentricities. not how swarm-like we are. this is from an x-script writer? its not a theme, its an anti-theme. lets look at hegel's blind spot.

" Fundamentals will focus on histories – on the inevitable elements of all architecture used by any architect, anywhere, anytime" if by anytime you mean only the last 100 years. And pay no attention to the fact that modern globalization began in the 1600's, thus America.

Agree with tammuz. Hegel's blind spot is becoming too hard to ignore, but institutions take a long time to adjust to modern realities. Rem's a one trick pony and it's a testiment to how entrenched his way of thinking is that the bienalle would pick him to curate thier next show.

"Fundamentals will focus...on the inevitable elements of all architecture...the door, the floor, the ceiling etc" Hope he dosen't omit door knobs and tiles. Can't get enough of his irony!

RK's full statement on the biennale (from Domus) answers the concerns above...

"The First World War — the beginning of modern globalization — serves a starting point for the range of narratives," Koolhaas continued. "The transition to what seems like a universal architectural language is a more complex process than we typically recognize, involving significant encounters between cultures, technical inventions and imperceptible ways of remaining "national." In a time of ubiquitous google research and the flattening of cultural memory, it is crucial for the future of architecture to resurrect and expose these narratives."

"By telling the history of the last 100 years cumulatively, the exhibitions in the National Pavilions will generate a global overview of architecture's evolution into a single, modern aesthetic," remarked the Dutch architect, "and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify…"

I think the problem is his double speak, a sample of which I pointed out. Another you've uncovered is as follows, "a global overview of architecture's evolution into a single, modern aesthetic" This is contradicted with this statement..." and at the same time uncover within globalization the survival of unique national features and mentalities that continue to exist and flourish even as international collaboration and exchange intensify…"

If global architecture will evolve into a single modern aesthetic, how will unique national features continue to exist and flourish? Rem and many starchitects have prooven deft marketers to their own personal vision, seeking to impose them on others. I'm afraid empirical evidence, to say nothing about a scientific understanding of our evolutionary biology disprooves his assertion. He should stick with gimicky tropes like S,M,L,XL.

well thayer his explanation is admittedly confusing. what i think rem intends is for the entire biennale, viewed altogether, to show a narrative of architectural globalization. but each individual piece of the biennale, viewed separately, will highlight some sub-narrative about a nation or culture's transition into modernity, involving their own unique architectural expressions of modernism.

did rem really say he expects unique national features to continue existing and flourishing? maybe that's what the conversation will be about.

you know.. these national/cultural 'features' won't continue to exist ONLY within the countries' geopolitical boundaries. but my colleagues and i can usually accurately guess from what country the architect of a given contemporary building hailed. the work of danish and spanish architects are especially easy to spot. so i would not say that the worlds' architects have aesthetically merged quite yet.

Thanks for your explination, it does clarify it a bit, as well as being a much more honest description of what he entails to show, that these are unique architectural expressions of modernism, which is definatley not the totality of the modern experience, unless one inhabit's a hermetical world where only their kind of thinking is allowed. One of my issues with this kind of sophistry is the conflation of the word modern with modernist when to anyone's eyes, what's contemporary is much more eclectic than ideologues like Rem would have you believe. And while abstract minimalism isn't my cup of aesthetic tea, it's certainly a part of our modern condition.

I personally don't think it's possible or desirable that the world's various architectural aesthetics should ever merge into one all dominant aesthetic, which after all was the intent of the early modernists (international style) and apparently the antiquated hope of Rem, but there's no harm in having your own trade show. I don't study abstract minimalism enough to recognize the difference between a Dutch parametric grid or an American one, only becasue they don't hold my attention, but to each his own.

"if global architecture will evolve into a single modern aesthetic, how will unique national features continue to exist and flourish?"

Its funny to me how on too many Arch websites people only leave comments attempting to come up with some "zinger" to take down RK. A critique for the sole purpose of sounding perspicacious. Thayer D, did you think he meant by a modern Aesthetic that every building would be identical in every way? Is that usually the case? Because it was part of a modern global Aesthetic would this mean it had no unique national features at all? Do you think when the Romans built an amphitheater in Syria it shared a similar Aesthetic to one in Rome itself? yes. Was every feature identical? no. Were there uniquely Syrian features? of course. The same with a McDonald's, they are all instantly recognizable as a McDonald's restaurant even without the logo, very similar, but if you travel to China they have some uniquely Chinese features.

yes sure and keep in mind how much the syrians gave the romans...and if you go back further, how much the syriacs gave the proto-greeks.

but this is not the case here; we are not talking of interactions of cultures at various levels. bur rather of a specific evolution and cultivation of non-culturally specific (but still certainly western and euro-centric) class of people in (potentially) any society. we are not talking of the mutations that exist at the sites of interactions. what i understand as his intention is the identification of universal tropes through their variations.

this is not surpsing; it is in tandem with/part of the larger universal market where cutural differences are only nominal and the mark of differentiation is currency and all global matters must be sieved through the global economy.

i am not saying Rem Koolhas is unintelligent and is not actually correct or perceptive in his own world, for my own person. i am saying that his description of the status quo is so accepting, so historically final and so blind to other levels and other classes of people where his monologic is not supported by his cultural agnosticism and neither is it supported, for these people, economically. liberty of thought can only be guaranteed by not blindly affirming the formula of the status quo...whose application has proved to be devastating for many people. i dont understand, personally, these people who jump on the opportunistic wagon...if opportunism is your aim, then profit is your aim, then might as well trafick in weapons you'll make a lot more money than architects that way.

liberty of thought can only be guaranteed by not blindly affirming the formula of the status quo... whose application has proved to be devastating for many people. i don't understand, personally, these people who jump on the opportunistic wagon...if opportunism is your aim, then profit is your aim, then might as well traffic in weapons you'll make a lot more money than architects that way.

tammuz, I agree with you. There will be more specific notes on that in part 3 of IABR interview with Dutch putting cash value on cultural production and export of branded "creative industries." A lot of opportune cards are being played here.

I must admit I had to look up perspicacious, which made me think, if I sound like I have a "keen mental perception and understanding", might that not be true? Are you so easily fooled that what you question what your senses tell you? Never mind. Also, it's funny you should equate modernism with McDonalds, becasue if I go to China (with a respirator) I don't want to eat at McDonalds any more than I want to try Napoli's Boglognese.

"liberty of thought can only be guaranteed by not blindly affirming the formula of the status quo" Exactly my point. If a person in China want's to build in a traditionally Chinese style, he's derrided by the Remmy's of this world for not being "of our time", that's if Remmy would deem him an equal. My guess is this exibition segregates the world the way most architects do into those who do buildings and those who do Architecture. If you want to play with the big boys, then follow it's rules, except liberty of thought ought to be able to handle the ever increasing plurality of the modern world. In fact, it's that very homogenization that Mr. Koolhaus is promoting which is leading many in every world to push for those things that speak to them on a human level.

Rem - "...the erasure of national characteristics in favour of the almost universal adoption of a single modern language..."

tammuz - "i am not saying Rem Koolhas is unintelligent and is not actually correct or perceptive in his own world, for my own person. i am saying that his description of the status quo is so accepting, so historically final and so blind to other levels and other classes of people where his monologic is not supported by his cultural agnosticism and neither is it supported"

I also agree, except I make no distinctions between classes of people, and his world is the same as mine and the Chinese Farmers world, in the sense that we are all human with the same phisiological make up, unless I missed something in my modern science class.

"Do you think when the Romans built an amphitheater in Syria it shared a similar Aesthetic to one in Rome itself? yes. Was every feature identical? no. Were there uniquely Syrian features? of course. The same with a McDonald's, they are all instantly recognizable as a McDonald's restaurant even without the logo, very similar, but if you travel to China they have some uniquely Chinese features."

quite right, though its still a pity in my opinion. cultures and nations only differentiating their architecture by small 'features' is a shallow substitute for the way things used to be. anyways, its silly to attribute this aesthetic merge to the influential architects like RK. the fact is that irregardless of the architectural discipline, all cultures are indeed gradually blending together. its no surprise that humanity's stylistic preferences are merging when everyone's way of life is becoming more and more similar, and we are all exposed to the same medias and arts through the wires and over the airwaves. everything that rises must converge.

This has a lot of potential - but I'm wondering about the US contribution - we still have a huge amount of regional variety in vernacular based on different colonial histories, climate, and cultural identity - almost in spite of globalization. Even today a smallish mixed-use project in Boston is going to look different from one with a similar program going up in NYC, and both will look different from something similar in LA or Dallas. I worry that if the US submission focuses on suburbia or big high-profile projects it will seem like old hat . IMO I'd much rather see someone taking a critical look at national policies that led to the physical condition of suburbia - just not smugly say "oh look - a big box mall" or "creeping global capitalist hegemony ."

(on a side note - stateside, beer is a good example of increasing regionalism and local identity - there are still the big national brands, but their share of the market has shrunk pretty dramatically - and this is a result of the legalization of home-brewing)

Your right tammuz, and I almost wrote a disclaimer understanding that you didn't mean that in a pejorative way. My point was only to say that people's aspirations and desires cross all sorts of class distinctions, whether they be economic, educational, or whatever criteria one's inclined to cast people in. In other words, whatever class one is forced to represent, that dosen't nulify the common human instincts we all posess becasue of our physiology, which was determined through evolution. The challenge for modern architecture is to reconcille the two seemingly irreconcilable forces of modern societies convergence with the need for identity. Modernists like Rem look at the world through this Hegelian view that one first need's to determine the spirit of our times, and then work with in that box. But as you elegantly put it, "liberty of thought can only be guaranteed by not blindly affirming the formula of the status quo". Economic class dosen't negate the classlessness of our shared human nature.

The beer analogy is a great example of the countervailing forcees to this homogenization modernists have insisted we must submit to. Cheers!

its no surprise that humanity's stylistic preferences are merging when everyone's way of life is becoming more and more similar, and we are all exposed to the same medias and arts through the wires and over the airwaves. everything that rises must converge.

I'd argue the opposite - increasing access to enormous amounts of information suddenly focuses you rather intensely on what's happening mostly in your own local area and specialty, and there's more of this sense of attempting to distinguish certain places from each other when things do rise to the surface. Sure, ideas get absorbed more quickly - but the fascinating thing to me is that now ideas originate in one place, then morph and catch on more intensely in other places - then might die off in the old place. Architecture moves a lot slower - and we're usually one or two generations behind what is really happening culturally. What gets built is a reflection of the older generation's values because of who typically finances these projects.

and it's no longer national identity - it's becoming more about city/region identity.

The beer analogy is a great example of the countervailing forcees to this homogenization modernists have insisted we must submit to. Cheers!

I think it's more that people say it's "inevitable" (not that it's necessary good or bad - but that it's one of the side effects of globalization) - but i think the difference now is that we're all very much aware of it - especially the younger generation - and even though we like to derisively poke fun at the "locally grown - locally-sourced" artisanal hipster crowd - this really does represent a major shift in how and what we consume - and I think it's just now starting to influence vernacular and style as well.

I couldn't agree with you more toasteroven. The hipster crown has it right, but it's not just them, it's also the conservative women in my office that now only buy organic and fresh for their families because they don't want to poison their families. They just haven't made the connection between big business and fox news (and others to be fair) who are interested dividing and conquering to keep the status quo going. Like the style wars promoted by both classicists and modernists when there are so many more important issues to contend with. As tammuz brilliantly pointed out, "his monologic is not supported by his cultural agnosticism " Key word, agnosticism. This kind of conversation gives me real hope.

Architecture moves a lot slower - and we're usually one or two generations behind what is really happening culturally. What gets built is a reflection of the older generation's values because of who typically finances these projects.
and it's no longer national identity - it's becoming more about city/region identity

Interesting debate people. The culinary arts are a good indicator of cultural trends imo. From what I have seen as an amature foodie, It does seem that regionalism is making a big comeback. There also seems to be a move away from the "avante garde" towards a more subtle reinvention of the local and traditional. A period of refinement rather then mutation. This is much different than what we see in architecture. I would attribute this to the overall dissatisfaction that many people have with modern global culture, and the fact that there are real options in what we chose to eat.....not so many in how we inhabit space. There seems to be an individual backlash against the global forces...I say individual because as a whole, society is still becoming more and more global as if the collective society is acting against the will and desire of the individual components that make it up. In the culinary world, there is also a huge regional difference between the direction of the local culinary arts and the local architectural arts. In china food culture is very traditional. There is very little global influence on chinese culinary arts. In contrast, chinese architecture is extremely global. It seems that this affirms Framptons point the "architecture is for the people rather than by the people." In the US, there is a very strong movement towards regionalism in food culture. It is a sort of blend between global ideas and regional materials/methods. IMO it reflects who we are in the US...much more strongly than our suburbs and corporate towers. Fast high quality eateries like food trucks are rivaling low quality fast food joints like mcdonalds in many places (S.F and Austin in particular). And then of course there are countries like spain and france where the "fancy 5 star" is being rejected and everday local/traditional low brow high quality is being celebrated. I bring up food, because it seems that it is a good indicator of what people really want. As far as architecture goes....I do not think people are really getting what they want. Architecture is too disconnected from the free market forces to adapt to the will of the people. It has been removed from natural selection... It is being dictated and funded by a very small group of people onto the masses. Fast food is like that in many ways, but in places where the local laws and the local physical structue of the city allow for more small entrapenuership, it seems that the real desires of the people begin to shine brighter than the corporate forces that try to dictate and manipulate through advertisement and monopoly.....

I haven't been able to find a list of the participating countries of the 14th architectural Biennale, but, of the 46 participating countries of the 10th architectural Biennale (2006), only 18 countries were not from Europe: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, Georgia, Japan, Israel, Republic of South Africa, Republic of Korea, People's Republic of China, Russia, Singapore, United States of America, Uruguay. And half of those non-European countries began their histories as European colonies.

"and it's no longer national identity - it's becoming more about city/region identity."

you are talking from an american-eurocentric point of view.

i would argue quite the opposite; in our region it was indeed more about one's city, culture and language prior to the onset of nationalism. commerce occured between cities: aleppo, beirut, haifa, alexandria, constantinople..and so on. we're talking earlier 20th century and before, not so long ago. arabs, armenians, jews, greeks/turks (in one or seperate), armenians, kurds...all living within the same cities. then the explosion of nationalism as a device by which europe was to ration us and rationalize us. now, regrouped, we all have one or two national languages in each country, a generalized sense of majority and minority identities that has elevated difference into dogma and created tensions acoss borders and within, self conflicting identities.. and they ask us why ours is such a fucked up region, hah.

to even exaggerate quondam's point further, one can then view all nation-countries as primarily european inventions, whether self-willed or not.

it is a paradox, nonetheless. what nationalism does is it proclaims a grand difference (i am from Lebanon, you are from the US, he is from Nigeria...) while in effect it creates parallel and equivalent systems that can, on a global scale, find sympathy with its equivalent. national banks, stock markets, ministeries of foreign affairs....the more they recognize themselves as countries on par with any other, the closer they get to each other ..that is paradoxical. the more different you are by scale (macro= country), the more similar you are to any other citizen in any other country.

so it is very understandable that rem koolhaas takes nationalism as his theme- or if you wish, post-nationalism in the conclusive form of a mature nationalized world.

so, again, i totally see his point. my objection is not to the correctness of his assessment of a world that he occupies but to his -not just uncritical acquiescence- but even to his will to misrepresent others' worlds and to overlook the destructive and impoverishing consequences of any monologically driven will to create/destroy.

His father strongly supported the Indonesian cause for autonomy from the colonial Dutch in his writing. When the war of independence was won, he was invited over to run a cultural programme for three years and the family moved to Jakarta in 1952. "It was a very important age [8-11] for me," Koolhaas recalls, "and I really lived as an Asian."

In 1969 Koolhaas co-wrote The White Slave, a Dutch film noir, and later wrote an unproduced script for American soft-porn king Russ Meyer.

The same with a McDonald's, they are all instantly recognizable as a McDonald's restaurant even without the logo, very similar, but if you travel to China they have some uniquely Chinese features."

The mcdonlds in china or india is unique to that culture but it is more of a exploitation of that culture than a reflection of it. No different than a corporate glass box styled to resemble a pagoda. There is a big difference between a global corporation adapting to a region and a region adapting to a more global world. The latter is an empowering force and the former is a kind of oppression.

Jia-x I agree with you in a way, I think oppression might be a bit melodramatic, I would say its maybe contrived, and exploitative at the very worst. My point with the macdonalds was merely to make the point that you can have a global aesthetic but still have local features, because someone else (I think it was Thayer-D) was talking as though the two were mutually exclusive.

I see a lot of very verbose arguments against globalization in general here, obviously you guys are ideologically and philosophically opposed to it (and apparently one of you to the state of Israel too, which seems kind of random to bring up in this context) but what does this have to do with Rem's choice of fundamentals, do you think that he should have used his position at the Bienalle to attack globalization, bring it down somehow? If any of you had actually been to a lecture of RK's you would know that at almost every single one he talks about the damage the "Y.E.S Regime" (yen, euro, dollar signs) has done to architecture, aka the market economy (it seems ironic that someone stated in a comment that instead of globalism the market economy, and thus the people's will, should be reflected in architecture's aesthetics. Globalism is an effect of the market economy, the people's will is never reflected in a market economy, only the will of the wealthy) Also someone wrote that Rem (I'm paraphrasing because there is way to much dense, verbose jargon so sort through to pull up a quote) actually is promoting homogenization by bullying and minimizing "smaller" architects from other countries such as China. Again, if you had been to an RK lecture you would know that this is the opposite of the reality, he is constantly talking about the massive growth in Chinese architecture (that which is actually executed by Chinese architects) as not only a positive thing but perhaps the way of the future for all architecture, he has suggested that in the future starchitects might be put out of business by chinese architects that make one generic design for each type of usage (one design for an office building, one for a apartment complex etc..) and then merely repeat this generic design wherever needed. If you have been to Hong Kong this is visible by looking at the skyline, they have strings of ten identical buildings all across the city.

Its crazy what RK gets blamed for; apparently you guys hold him (at least partially) responsible for globalization, that's completely ludicrous, if you guys are architects (or budding architects) you might want to start thinking less in terms of philosophy/ideology and more in terms of the physical global reality if you ever want to get anything built rather than writing long soliloquy's raging against the inevitable.

I also read the entire description of what RK states will be the basis of the latest Bienalle and it's absurd to say that what he said proves his support of globalization, he wants to explore it, that's true, but nowhere in there does he state in any way that it is the desired condition of architecture, you guys projected that because of your philosophical and ideological hatred for RK and globalization, two things that are separate in reality. As any working architect does RK has to deal with globalization because it is the reality and he unlike many architects actually builds in reality, if you read his writings and listened to his lectures you would see that he has a far from positive view on all aspects of globalization although undoubtedly he has benefit from other aspects of it, but that's not something that is singular to him, all working, successful architects could have the same thing said about them because its unavoidable in the current global climate.

I agree with you in part. I like rems work. He is not responsible for globalisation, however, he is a cog for it. I feel that Rem is personally opposed to globalism, but given his position as a global architect, he is forced to justify his work and thus justify globalism. In Delerious NY, his emphasis on the local programatic adaptations to the ridgid grid of the city, and the "corporate tower" reality of NY, leads me to believe that he celebrates the idea of regions adapting to globalism rather than the opposite senario that I pointed out in the Mc'donalds analogy....Also, countryside seems to be an attempt to criticise the effects of globalism on local cultures... Rem is a great architect. No doubt about it. I just have a hard time believing that he really believes in the global work that he does. Is he maybe post-rationalising his work because he has an inner doubt that it is "good" for society?

I agree that the market economy does not reflect the will of the people. I do believe that local free-markets do at times. My analogy to the rise of the food trucks in S.F points this out. Locals are always fighting global forces. It has always been this way. This is a healthy resistance to change. It creates a balance in society. I am for global awareness and connectedness, but opposed to imperialism. The spread of hip-hop music is a form of global awareness. The mcdonalds is a form of cultural/corporate imperialism. One is organic and bottom up, the other is forced and top down. Most starchitecture seems to be top-down. In contrast, many great architects like zumthor, ect...... have a subtle global flavor, which is reflective of the true nature of all 21st century people, but he "cooks" his architecture with local ingredients and uses locally inspired techniques. This kind of architecture imo is much closer to the reality of the globally minded locally bred person-which is what we all are. His work is thus, true to the people and place. Rem's work is true to the machine, but yes,his rhetoric is true to the people.

Also, I am not saying that his architecture is right or wrong. There is no right or wrong! I appreciate architecture for it's being only. I appreciate the beauty of all of nature even if it is an invasive species. It's existance is not right or wrong....It just is. Its effects however can be weighed and judged as being positive or negative on the overall health of the local ecology. My critique of such globalist architypes does not necessarily dismiss their integrity as architecture, it questions their effect.